Progress in Human Geography 30, 3 (2006) pp.

382395

Political ecology: where is the policy?

Peter A. Walker
Department of Geography, University of Oregon, Eugene,
OR 97403-1251, USA

I Introduction
I ask readers to forgive a brief indulgence in
personal anecdote, albeit ostensibly for a purpose. In youth I studied in India as an undergraduate, served in Sierra Leone as a Peace
Corps volunteer, and worked as a research
consultant in Malawi. From these diverse
experiences, I was, like many others, bewildered that conventional development and
environmental policies so often go so badly
wrong. I read Graham Hancocks plaintive
Lords of poverty (1989), which offered darkly
searing critique but little analytical basis for
more effective solutions. Until I could better
understand the failures of development, a
career in this field seemed ruled out. Looking
for a new direction, in the early 1990s I stumbled onto geography, and, at the recommendation of friends, studied the emerging
subfield of political ecology. I read Michael
Watts Silent violence (1983) and Piers Blaikie
and Harold Brookfields Land degradation and
society (1987). Although these were quite different books (one rich in theory; the other
also rich in theory but with a more applied
approach), I felt I had found my intellectual
home. Political ecology offered powerful analytical tools to understand more holistically
the social and environmental problems I had
observed, without the intellectual restraints
of narrower disciplines. Surely, I thought, the
purpose of this kind of deep analysis is to help
2006 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd

solve these problems. That is why, as I began

my professional career as a geographer, I was
quite surprised to find that political ecology is
divided and ambivalent in its attitude toward
and engagement with environmental and
social policy.
Indeed, it is possible at times to feel that
political ecologists perceive policy as a kind of
uncouth distant cousin to be kept at a safe
distance. At the 2000 Annual Conference of
the Association of American Geographers,
an eminent political ecologist on a major panel
about the history of political ecology
responded to criticism that the subfield lacks
engagement with practical problem-solving
with a statement memorable for its blunt
honesty: I feel no obligation, said the political
ecologist, to be useful.1 This position is by no
means representative of the subfield as a
whole (indeed, with its diversity today, it may
be impossible for any statement to be representative of this subfield as whole). Yet, in an
odd harmony of unkindred souls, some professional policy-makers share this disinterest
in linking to political ecology. Another prominent political ecologist recently quoted a World
Bank representative attending a joint workshop for scholars and policy-makers as
responding to a political ecology paper by saying, If this came across my desk, Id throw it
in the trash as useless and ill-informed (or
something to that effect).2 Other scholars of
10.1191/0309132506ph613pr

Peter A. Walker
political ecology and related fields observe
similar skepticism and distrust of political
ecology among bureaucrats and policymakers. Again, by no means does this
represent the attitudes or experiences of all
political ecologists. Yet, it does illustrate the
apathy, if not actual antipathy, that sometimes characterizes the relationship between
political ecology and applied policy.
It seems surprising that political ecologists
and policy-makers are often disinterested or
even disdainful of each other. The subject
matter of their work and their own professed
goals are often the same. Moreover, this
ambivalence appears (at least superficially)
inconsistent with the history and stated goals
of political ecology. For example, Piers
Blaikies book Political economy of soil erosion
(1985) is often described as a pioneering
work of neo-Marxian development critique
and as a foundational text in political ecology.
It was published with the clearly stated purpose of helping international aid agencies,
development organizations, and charities
understand the question Why do policies
usually fail? (the title of the books fourth
chapter). As discussed later in this essay, the
New approach (Chapter 5) that Blaikie
offered got him in trouble with some policymakers. Nevertheless, the book clearly
focused on constructively engaging policy, in
language that policy-makers could understand (events following publication of the
book suggest that perhaps they understood it
too well).
The structural neo-Marxian approach of
political ecology pioneered by Blaikie and
others was followed in the 1990s by a shift
toward poststructuralist approaches, but
much of the poststructuralist work in political
ecology also focused strongly on engaging
policy. Melissa Leach and Robin Mearns,
Fellows of the Institute for Development
Studies at the University of Sussex, co-edited
the landmark political ecology text The lie of
the land (1996) based on proceedings of a
policy conference. Peet and Watts enormously influential political ecology text

383

Liberation ecologies (1996) stated that its goal

was to raise the emancipatory potential of
environmental ideas and to engage directly
with the larger landscape of debates over
modernity, its institutions, and its knowledges (p. 37). One might reasonably assume
that development and environmental policy is
a central feature of this intellectual and institutional landscape.
Yet, despite its rich history and professed
interest in engaging public debate, the actual
engagement of political ecology with fields of
research and public debate outside the academy has been limited. For example, political
ecology has had virtually no engagement with
some of the worlds most important international research programs dealing with environmental change and human-environmental
relations, such as the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the
International Human Dimensions Programme
on Global Environmental Change, and the
Millennial Ecosystems Assessment (Turner in
Murphy, 2005: 10). Nor have political ecologists had any major discernible presence at
the United States National Academy of
Sciences or the National Research Council.
Political ecologists have established some links
to important non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Social Science
Research Council and a number of international development NGOs. Overall, however,
the subfield remains largely inward-looking,
directing much of its attention to scholarly
debates within the academy. To be fair, the
limited engagement of political ecology with
broader social and environmental research,
discourse, and policy may in part reflect the
general weakness of public engagement by
the discipline of geography as a whole
(Murphy, 2005). Yet, as a field that largely
emerged from critiques of policy, and owes
much of its intellectual genealogy to applied
fields such as hazards studies (Watts and
Peet, 2004: 8), the ambivalence toward
policy among many political ecologists seems
puzzling.

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Political ecology

How can we understand this apparent

ambivalence? How can we explain the indifference, if not actual hostility, toward political
ecology by some policy-makers? These are
the questions this essay examines. The reader
(and certainly the author) may be disappointed that this essay provides no firm
answers but, after 20 years of an uncertain
and sometimes tense relationship between
political ecology and policy, these questions
merit greater discussion.
II The blind men and the elephant:
talking to the outside world
Any discussion of political ecology today
reminds one of the dangers suggested by the
Buddhist parable of the blind men who
touched different parts of an elephant and
described it to the emperor, producing fierce
quarrels as each described something different, yet part of a whole. Scholarship that is
identified under the label of political ecology
today is so diverse in its objectives, epistemologies, and methods that one can only discuss this subfield with enormous trepidation,
recognizing that it is in fact many diverse
areas of scholarship lacking any single coherent theoretical approach or message.3 Yet a
rapidly growing number of geographers identify themselves or their work as political ecology.4 Among them, it is true that some
political ecologists simply do not aspire to
advise or work with policy-makers. It is not
true that political ecology as a whole does not
engage policy. Some of the most distinguished
political ecologists are deeply immersed professionally and intellectually in the world of
applied policy. Anthony Bebbington, Piers
Blaikie, Dianne Rocheleau, and Jesse Ribot
(to name a few) come to mind.
Yet some political ecologists express concern that these are the exceptions that prove
the rule. To quote British geographer and
political ecologist Simon Batterbury, many
feel strongly that political ecology as a whole
should (but often does not) step outside the
classroom and conference circuit.5 This
essay may be of no interest to those political

ecologists who do not share this concern. For

those who do, this essay is an effort to consider some of the possible barriers and opportunities for communicating ideas from
political ecology more effectively so they may
be linked to efforts to solve specific social and
environmental problems outside the academy. As to those in the policy world who are
skeptical or dismissive of political ecology, this
essay will suggest that one possible means to
overcome this skepticism is for the subfield as
a whole recognizing all its diversity to
learn to talk more effectively about what it
is, and what it can offer. This essay does not
attempt to provide answers; rather, its
purpose is to stimulate dialog. The following
sections offer some initial, tentative thoughts
about barriers and opportunities for more
productive engagement between political
ecology and policy. These ideas are presented
in no particular order other than as they
occurred to the author.
III Compelling counter-narratives:
missing in action
Consider the most influential social science
narratives in modern history. The population
explosion. The tragedy of the commons.
The invisible hand of the free market. Each
is simple, clear, compelling and powerful.
None was created by critical social scientists.
In contrast, like other fields of social theory,
political ecology is not famous for producing
concise and compelling narratives. Political
ecology is better known for complexity and
often dense theoretical prose for example,
Blaikies (1985) almost humorously Rube
Goldberg-esque box-and-arrow diagrams, or
Watts (1983) dense, arcane, and frustrating
(but valuable) language of high Marx (as
Robbins, 2004: 68, has described it).
To be sure, this complexity and theoretical
richness is the very backbone of political
ecologys enormous analytical strengths; but
with respect to influencing the world of policy
outside the academy, this thickness can also
be an obstacle. In his book Narrative policy
analysis (1994), Emery Roe demonstrates

Peter A. Walker
convincingly that it is rarely sufficient merely
to provide accurate analytical critiques of
policies. It may matter little that a critique is
brilliantly insightful and true; critique alone
rarely produces significant policy changes.
Indeed, critique by itself can have the opposite effect of creating uncertainty and reinforcing the status quo. What is needed,
according to Roe, are compelling counternarratives.
As a whole, political ecology has not been
notably successful in creating effective
counter-narratives. In fact, for all its deeply
insightful critique, political ecology (and
Geography as a whole) has had relatively little
impact in retelling the big stories that dominate public discourse outside the academy.
For example, from its inception political
ecology has done battle with deeply flawed
neo-Malthusian theories of population
growth and environmental degradation. Yet
political ecology has produced no counternarratives that are remotely as influential as
the powerful imagery of the population
bomb or the population explosion (Ehrlich,
1968; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1990).6 Indeed, in
the realm of public debate, political ecology
(and critical social theory generally) has been
trounced in recent years by widely influential
and popular yet deeply flawed and unapologetic neo-Malthusian rants such as Robert
Kaplans (1994) The coming anarchy and
Jared Diamonds (2005) Collapse.
Political ecologists might be credited for
refusing to dumb down their analysis to
compete with the shallow but seductive narratives by authors such as Kaplan and
Diamond. Political ecologists (and other social
theorists) have unquestionably demolished
simplistic neo-Malthusian theory on paper.
Yet intellectual purity does little to change
policy, and neo-Malthusian theory (albeit
with some modifications for example,
Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 2004) still largely dominates policy discourse. This begs the question:
if a mighty received wisdom falls in the dense
forest of social theory but no one hears it, did
it make a sound? Did it really fall?

385

It could be argued that the most fundamental role of political ecology is to question
the oversimplifying and misleading conventional views of human-environment relations,
not to compete in a race to the intellectual
bottom. However, this notion would mistakenly conflate the problem of oversimplification in analysis with the skills of good
storytelling. These are not the same. Hardins
tragedy of the commons (1968) and Ehrlichs
population bomb (1968) succeeded so phenomenally well not because they oversimplified reality (which they did), nor even
because they supported the entrenched
power of political-economic elites (which
they also did): they succeeded in large measure because they were good stories that
effectively communicated a powerful idea. It
is not uncommon to hear political ecologists
grumble that fields such as economics, political science, and biology dominate policy
debates because they strip away complex
social realities. This may be true, but it does
not follow that the reason for their success is
analytical oversimplification per se; rather,
these fields have succeeded largely because
they tell good stories (though it is reasonable
to suggest that simplification in analysis
makes it easier to tell clear stories).
There is no reason that political ecology
cannot tell good stories as well. Some of the
very best and most influential works in political ecology have succeeded not because they
have stripped their theoretical work to fit into
sound-bite proportions, but because they
have skillfully honed top-flight social and environmental research into elegant and powerful
counter-narratives. Perhaps the best known
of such works is the research presented in
Melissa Leach and Robin Mearns (1996) The
lie of the land (the success of this book probably owes in no small part to its powerful and
memorable title, which almost dares the audience to read on). This book responded
directly to powerful, widely perceived images
of environmental change within professional
development circles and popular news and
media. The book challenged conventional

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Political ecology

narratives (orthodoxies and received

wisdom) that lead to misguided or even
fundamentally flawed policy. The book became
(by the standards of scholarly books) a wild
success, read by both researchers and decisionmakers in many important policy institutions.
The research presented in The lie of the
land was not new; rather, the success of this
book derived from two sources: 1) an explicitly comparative analysis in which the case
studies are presented so as to add up to more
than the sum of their parts (p. 4); and 2) an
approach that recognizes policy orthodoxies
as stories (Roe, 1991) that embody relationships of power (Foucault, 1981) that circulate
among professional communities and can be
un-told through construction of effective
counter-narratives. A counter-narrative
approach recognizes that an effective challenge to flawed and power-laden received
wisdom not only depends on debunking science, but also requires penetrating and
disrupting the flow of old, comfortable,
convenient stories that circulate among environmental and development professionals, and
replacing them with counter-narratives
which better fit the claims of a different set of
stakeholders; preferably, counter-narratives
with equally attractive slogans and labels
(p. 33).
The real breakthrough, the key metanarrative that Leach and Mearns offer, is the
power of narrative itself: certain scientific
ideas are accepted because they have always
been accepted and can be challenged as
such.7 Specifically, certain narratives may
have been accepted because they fit conveniently with the political-economic interests
of powerful elites (including policy-makers
themselves), or simply because within the
world of policy actors and networks certain
foundational beliefs (accurate or not) become
sticky as institutions and careers are built
around them (p. 28). Thus, a counter-narrative
approach begins with Roes (1991; 1994)
observation that it is not enough to merely critique existing stories; rather, it is necessary to
understand the social conditions that produce

and reproduce such stories (Forsyth, 2003),

and to use this knowledge to supplant false
narratives with stories that are scientifically
robust and have the capacity to sustain and
liberate both humans and nature. While political ecologists have shown great skill as critics,
if they wish to influence policy they must
learn, as Leach and Mearns (1996) put it, that
better scientific research is unlikely to have
practical impact (p. 30) unless this research is
deliberately translated and projected into
public debate in the form of clear and
compelling counter-narratives. In short,
political ecologists must become better
storytellers.
IV The question of scale and
integration
In describing research in development geography (a field closely related and overlapping
with political ecology see Peet and Watts,
1996), Anthony Bebbington (2003) has
argued that this subfield has left few marks on
the broader canvas of development theory
and the ideas and practices of development
organizations. In part, this is because the subfield has focused on research at the scale of
the individual local case study, making it
difficult to ascertain the significance of such
studies to broader development concerns. To
address this problem, Bebbington calls for a
greater effort toward comparative and
broader-scale studies:
A second dimension of building better theory is
by theorizing up from place-based studies.
Central to this is comparison of these different
casual processes and factors across placebased studies . . . without such comparison and
integration, it always remains unclear what to
do with place-based case studies. They remain
open to the charge (fair or not) that they are
ultimately case specific and poorly linked to a
wider context (or a broader population of
similar cases) of which they are part. They
remain subject to the criticism (again, fair or
not) that they are in the end anecdotal . . . the
dependence on single stories reduces the
likelihood of influencing many bodies of
thought, be they those that dominate
development orthodoxy and its institutions or

Peter A. Walker
those that lead ultimately to the formation of
strategy in both liberal and alternative NGOs
and social organizations. (Bebbington, 2003:
303)

A very similar argument could be made with

respect to political ecology. While the early
structural political ecology often focused on
broad regional themes (again, Blaikies work in
Nepal; or Hecht and Cockburns broadcanvas examination of deforestation in the
Amazon, 1990), by the early 1990s the field
had shifted largely toward research that
Donald Moore describes as focused on the
micro-politics of peasant struggles over
access to productive resources and the symbolic contestations that constitute those
struggles (1996: 126). To be sure, by no
means all work that is assumed under the
label of political ecology focuses on individual
micro-scale case studies. For example,
works on development and social movements
in Latin America (Escobar and Alvarez, 1992;
Escobar, 1995) and works on globalization
and environment (Stonich and Bailey, 2000;
Escobar, 2001; Goodman, 2004; McCarthy
and Prudham, 2004) have made laudable
efforts to theorize up.
Yet it is also true that a very large proportion of todays political ecology still focuses on
individual case studies with relatively weakly
developed efforts to compare or contrast
these case studies, or to synthesize these
studies into broader, integrated regional
(Walker, 2003) or global analysis. For example, some of the best efforts toward theoretical synthesis in political ecology today consist
of edited volumes with broad introductory
theoretical chapters followed by individual,
independent case studies assembled post hoc
under broad themes such as discourse and
institutions and governance (Zimmerer and
Bassett, 2003; Peet and Watts, 2004). While
these efforts should be applauded, the degree
to which these can be considered to achieve a
comparative integration and an effective
theorizing up is open to question, given the
very different contexts, methods, and
analytical categories of these individual cases.

387

The difficulties of weaving these place-based

studies together post hoc into an integrative
whole appear extremely daunting. A more
coordinated comparative program based on
individual case studies built from the initial
stages of research design around common
sets of theoretical questions, methods, and
analytical categories and language may be
called for.
V The Marx question
One might think that, with the fall of the
Berlin wall receding into history and with
western capitalism in a triumphant mood, the
old reflexive hostility among mainstream
policy-makers toward all things Marxian
would have dissipated. One would be wrong.
With its roots in Marxian political economy
(Watts and Peet, 2004), political ecologys
genealogy hardly opens doors in mainstream
policy institutions. As Piers Blaikie recently
observed, even today An overt Marxian
analysis would make most policy makers bin
the report after page 2.8
Blaikie speaks from experience. His book
Political economy of soil erosion (1985), a foundational text in political ecology, offered a
powerful structuralist neo-Marxian explanation of soil erosion in Nepal. In combination
with an earlier book, Nepal in crisis (Blaikie
et al., 1980), Blaikies blunt challenge to classbased systems of accumulation in Nepal
caused the Nepali government temporarily to
ban him from the country (see Robbins, 2004:
53). Later, however, when multiparty democracy was introduced in Nepal, Blaikie states
that he and his co-authors of Nepal in crisis
became the flavor of the month among
policy-makers in the country. However,
apparently that month expired. As Blaikie
describes it:
[After the introduction of multiparty elections,
I had] no problems and all doors were open but
I feel that I and co-authors of [Nepal in crisis]
might now have difficulty in re-entering Nepal
with the present retrogressive policies of the
king and army. The book did play a part in the
introduction of democracy since the then-PM
(B.P. Koirala) was photographed in a

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Political ecology

newspaper holding our book, and became a

rallying point for dissent and reform . . . not so
much for the intrinsic quality of the book but
simply there were no others like it. The
banning of the book was due to the dependista
approach and the critique of semi-feudalism
and land owning classes in Nepal.9

This experience may be an extreme example

of the political difficulties associated with
applying neo-Marxian critiques to policy
analysis, but it also illustrates the enormous
power of such critiques Blaikies books
became popular and even iconic in the democratic Nepal that his writings helped to create
precisely because his critiques were effective
(which is also, of course, why Blaikie became
persona non grata to Nepals elite political
classes).
These difficulties are not necessarily representative of works in political ecology
today, which typically do not use overtly neoMarxian analysis. To be sure, the focus on
social relations of production and power as
they shape human relations with nature
remains perhaps the most definitive trait of
political ecology (owing not in small part to
the ubiquitous citations of Blaikie, Peet and
Watts, and other neo-Marxian scholars).
Indeed, critics of political ecology have argued
that the purportedly dogmatic focus on relationships of political power is the subfields
biggest flaw (Vayda and Walters, 1999). Yet
the time when political ecology scholarship
framed its analysis in explicitly structuralist
neo-Marxian terms (capital accumulation,
surplus extraction, and so on) has largely
passed (indeed, many traditional Marxian
scholars have lamented the diminution of
structuralist approaches in political ecology).
For example, in recent years Piers Blaikie
himself has been accused by the more traditional Marxian scholars in the subfield of leaving Marx behind as he moved into a career as
a consultant and activist. Today, Blaikie
argues that Marxism is thoroughly out of
favor and is considered arcane and deeply
flawed in most quarters (cited in Robbins,
2004: 53). In Blaikies own words, the more

traditional neo-Marxian scholars in the

subfield accused him of selling out the
revolution. To this Blaikie responds simply,
there is the academy and [there is] the
messy, constrained world outside.10
Yet, analysis of power remains central in
political ecology. Issues of justice, inequality,
poverty, exploitation, and the structural reasons for the reproduction of poverty remain
at the core of the subfield even if the theoretical language is muted. With or without
overt Marxian language, it is probably fair to
say that political ecology that does not focus
on power as it shapes human-environmental
relations would not be political ecology as
most recognize it today. Some who have shed
overt Marxian language perceive that these
sorts of critiques of power can go a long way
in the policy world and lead to important and
positive changes.11 For example, while drawing on neo-Marxian scholarship, distinguished
political ecologist Dianne Rocheleau and
others have been instrumental in advancing
gender analysis among major international
development and environmental policy
organizations while using language that
focuses tightly on relations of power but is
largely free of heavy-footed and abstract
analytical constructions (see Rocheleau et al.,
1988; Rocheleau et al., 1996).
The upshot of all this with respect to
policy is that, while political ecologists will no
doubt continue to argue among themselves
about the appropriate place for Marx, the
legacy of Marxian analysis in political ecology
will continue to present a sometimes awkward choice. For political ecologists who
desire to engage policy and still work with
Marxian analytical methods, the question
arises whether a degree of compromise and
even subterfuge is justified to get the camels
nose of radical critique under the tent of
mainstream policy.
While some political ecologists resolve this
question by leaving behind the subfields
Marxian analytical language, the label political
ecology and its association with Marxism has
become known to some in the policy world.

Peter A. Walker
Thus, for those political ecologists who wish
to engage policy without explicitly incorporating Marxian analysis, it may be appropriate
to challenge the now-conventional narratives
of the intellectual history of the subfield that
focus heavily on political ecologys Marxian
roots (for example, see Paulson et al., 2003).
While not disowning these Marxian roots,
the subfield has clearly moved in new directions a fact that may be relevant when
engaging policy. Neo-Marxian political ecologist Michael Watts has argued in another context (ie, whether political ecology should
focus on biophysical ecology) that the subfield
should celebrate its diversity, and let the
flowers of openness and dialogue bloom
(2003: 12). With respect to its approach to
political economy, that is exactly what happened: political ecology today has blossomed
in a wide assortment of colors (not all of them
red) a fact that those political ecologists
who wish to engage policy may find useful to
point out when communicating with the
messy, constrained world outside.
VI To whom do we speak?
The question of whether and how political
ecologists can speak more effectively to a
broader audience, including policy-makers, is
a variation on a perennial question: to whom
does political ecology speak (or wish to
speak)? The answer to this question is evident
in the choices of venues through which political ecologists present their work. If these
venues are any indication, to a very considerable extent political ecologists appear to
speak to other political ecologists (and perhaps to others in closely related fields). To the
degree that political ecologists speak to others
in their subfield through venues that are rarely
accessed by those outside the academy, it is
not surprising that political ecologists are
marginalized in broader public debates.
Table 1, for example, may give some illustration of the degree to which the ideas of
political ecologists are marginalized in public
debates. The table lists the Amazon.com
sales ranks of major books (including all fiction

389

and nonfiction) on themes of economic globalization, population, inequality and environment. At the top of the list (ranked 5 overall)
is New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedmans The world is flat, a book that
describes the worlds rich and poor as lions
and gazelles a world that Friedman celebrates as desirable and unstoppable even
though the weak will fall farther behind. Not
far behind Friedmans book are Jared
Diamonds Collapse and Guns, germs, and steel
(29 and 41, respectively), which explain global
inequality as largely derived from environmental factors, and blame social collapses on
population growth and eco-meltdowns. Far
behind the pack (36,820) is the revised 2004
edition of Donella Meadows et al.s classic
Limits to growth,12 which uses the classic neoMalthusian language of population overshoot to explain todays environmental crises.
The field of political ecology exists in no
small measure as a critical response to this
sort of neo-Malthusian and pro-globalization
argument. Yet, if the position of a body of
ideas on the Amazon.com sales ranks can be
taken as any measure of the degree to which
it has penetrated public debate, political ecologists continue to be left in the dust behind
their long-time rivals. At this writing, the
highest-ranked major book of political ecology
is Paul Robbins Political ecology: a critical
introduction, at 75,862, which sells fewer
than half as many books as Meadows Limits
to growth a book that has been a top-seller
for more than three decades. The other
contenders among major books in political
ecology Peet and Watts 2004 edition of
Liberation ecologies, Zimmerer and Bassetts
Political ecology, and the now-classic Fate of
the forest by Hecht and Cockburn do not,
combined, sell more than a small fraction of
the number of books as Friedman or
Diamond.
Sales ranks are unquestionably a crude
measure of the impact of a field of intellectual
inquiry. Yet these figures at least raise some
important observations. First (and rather
obviously), works such as The world is flat and

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Political ecology

Table 1

Books (paperback editions) by sales rank on Amazon.com, 17 August 2005

Author, year

Title

Publisher

Amazon.com sales
rank

Friedman, 2005

The world is flat

Diamond, 2005
Diamond, 1999
Meadows et al., 2004
Robbins, 2004
Peet and Watts, 2004
Zimmerer and Bossett,
2003
Hecht and Cockburn,
1990

Collapse
Guns, germs and steel
Limits to growth
Political ecology
Liberation ecologies
Political ecology

Farrar, Straus and

Giroux
Viking
Norton
Chelsea Green
Blackwell
Routledge
Guilford

Fate of the forest

HarperCollins

623,776

Guns, germs, and steel were specifically written for a popular audience and marketed as
trade books by major publishing companies. In
contrast, most works in political ecology
were published primarily through academic
publishers for scholarly audiences. The major
exception is Fate of the forest a book that
proved that a political ecology approach,
when written for a general audience and
marketed by a major publishing company, can
reach a mass audience. The low sales rank for
this book reflects the fact that this is now an
old book, and its impact has faded. More
importantly, arguably no book with a comparable critical political ecology edge has been
marketed to a general audience in 15 years.
The other observation from this list is that the
style and language of these books is very different: the books by Friedman, Diamond, and
Meadows are all praised by Publishers Weekly
for being written with accessible prose and
brilliant exposition (or similar terms). Few
such words of praise for accessibility are
offered to the books of political ecology.13
A similar pattern can be observed in journal publication. Using the Web of Science
journal database, a search conducted in
August 2005 for all major research or review
articles published in geography or related
interdisciplinary journals between January
2004 and June 2005 and identified by the
phrase political ecology in the topic or title

29
41
36,820
75,862
229,203
531,106

retrieved 48 articles. Of these, only eight articles (17%) appeared in journals that could be
said to clearly aim at a broad audience that
extends beyond the academic community.14
The great majority of political ecology articles
appear in journals such as The Annals of
the Association of American Geographers,
Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers, Geographical Journal, Cultural
Geographies and others that define the
research frontier but do not circulate widely
among development or environmental policy
professionals.
Again, this is a crude index, and it has a
major weakness: it does not account for the
very considerable number of publications that
appear in the so-called gray literature of professional development and environmental
agencies and organizations that is usually not
indexed and not easily enumerated. For
example, some excellent political ecologists
have worked directly within organizations
such as the World Resources Institute (eg,
Jesse Ribot) and the World Wildlife Fund (eg,
Jennifer Olson). The contributions of these
scholars in bringing the critical edge of political ecology into the realm of applied programs
and policy should not be underestimated.
However, these political ecologists remain
relatively few in relation to the larger group of
political ecologists whose careers are based
primarily in academic institutions where

Peter A. Walker
success is measured by traditional academic
indices of scholarly achievement that focus
heavily on publication of books and journal
articles that have high conventional (ie,
academic) impact indicators (a very curious
term worthy of serious critical deconstruction of its own!).15 Again, it is difficult to
enumerate the influence of these amphibious
political ecologists who straddle the academic
and professional realms, but this is one
potentially important avenue through which
the subfield may reach out to enhance its
true impact on the world at large.
VII Who are we? Why are we here?
The question to whom do we speak? supposes, perhaps erroneously, that there is some
coherent we and something coherent that
we wish to say. This may be the biggest challenge of all for political ecologists who wish to
speak to a broader public. There is simply no
easy or universally agreed-upon answer to
the questions of what political ecology is and
what it does. As the field has grown, it has
expanded in so many directions simultaneously that advocates and critics alike have
questioned whether political ecology retains
any coherence at all. Distinguished political
ecologist Michael Watts (2000: 592) has
observed: Political ecology has in a sense
almost dissolved itself . . . as scholars have
sought to extend its reach . . . [forming] a
hugely expanded and polyglot landscape of
political ecology. Similarly, political ecology
skeptic Billie Lee Turner has repeatedly voiced
concern (in many public forums) that political
ecology in its poststructuralist phase (see
Bassett and Zimmerer, 2004) has grown to
encompass so many various mixes of worldviews that it is very difficult to discern any
consistent meaning to the label (other than,
perhaps, a shared antipathy toward postpositivist science).
If political ecology is to be largely an
academic pursuit, this let a thousand flowers
bloom trend may be intellectually productive.
If political ecology is to project itself into
broader public debates, however, this poses a

391

problem. To the outside world, the first,

natural question is What is political ecology?
Paul Robbins (2004: 12) has boldly gone
where few have gone before by synthesizing
many definitions of political ecology to offer
the following: [political ecology is] empirical,
research-based explorations to explain
linkages in the condition and change of
social/environmental systems, with explicit
consideration of relations of power.This definition is as meaningful as any put forward so
far, but the range of explorations and linkages in social/environmental systems under
the label of political ecology is vast. For example, political ecology reveals the importance
of non-timber forest products to First Nation
communities in the remote Yukon (Natcher
et al., 2004) as well as the interactions
between molecules, organisms, and the global
biotechnology industry as regulated by intellectual property regimes under the World
Trade Organization (McAfee, 2003). The
span of theoretical approaches is as wide as
the range of subject matter: from high
Marxian theoretical critiques of capitalism
(OConnor, 1998) to studies of the formation
of social capital and sustainable livelihood
strategies by indigenous rural social movements (Bebbington, 1997). Robbins is correct
that these disparate studies share some common elements, but the terrain across which
these common themes have been stretched is
so vast that the commonalities are all but
invisible. Even for self-identified political
ecologists, the subfield has expanded so
greatly that it is no small task to explain what
the subfield is and what it does. If political
ecology can mean almost anything, it can
also mean almost nothing. The danger is that,
to those outside, political ecology may come
to appear as little more than disarticulated
intellectual sprawl under a catchy label.
Simon Batterbury eloquently expressed his
concerns about the impact of this sprawl
within the subfield in a speech to the Cultural
and Political Ecology Specialty Group at the
annual conference of the Association of
American Geographers in 2004.16 Batterbury

392

Political ecology

stated that the failure of political ecology that

concerns him most is the lack of more explicit
links between the subfield and environmental
problems and concerns outside the academy:
Cultural and political ecology has not offered a
strong and unified response to the major
environmental debates and challenges of our
time. Our own Specialty Group perhaps by
choice, perhaps because of our multiple foci
and research objectives does not engage in
programmatic statements, lobbying, or
coordinated research efforts . . . this lack of
unity reduces our visibility, and allows
analytical perspectives with narrower methods
to be more readily embraced by policymakers.
These include approaches that have different
epistemologies environmental economics,
and the conservation-focused resource and
ecological sciences . . . the role of the analytical
critic, which many of us adopt, works best
when it at least provides some tractable
alternative proposals to the environmental and
social problems that our research uncovers . . .
Political ecology has an edge, and an opening
here it can be a critical hatchet but also a
seed for new patterns . . . (Robbins 2004).
Consider [for example] the disgraceful actions
of the US government to deny the severity of
global warming and the American consumers
25% contribution to it we need to expose the
free-market, anti-environmental agenda
behind such actions, but also to conduct the
careful work that people like Diana Liverman
have been doing with researchers and
policymakers in the USA, prefiguring more
sustainable alternatives (Liverman 2004).

In short, the diffusion of political ecology may

be a strength within the academy, but it poses
an obstacle to the ability of the field to mount
coordinated efforts to resolve tangible problems in the world outside. This is by no means
a call for a more unitary or regimented
approach to research. Rather, it suggests a
need for better articulation and coordination
as an intellectual community to put the vast
wealth of knowledge generated within the
subfield to work for tangible problem-solving.
Such an effort would be a deliberate, normative, and radical act in a subfield that generally
claims to aspire to these objectives. Critique
alone is insufficient to generate change. This
is the unfulfilled promise of political ecology,

and it is no small challenge. As Robbins (2004:

53) has stated: Balancing criticism and effective policy intervention weighing political
ecologys hatchet against its seed is demonstrably difficult. Political ecology has long
claimed the mantle of a normative and politically activist radical field. To take a hatchet
to unjust and ineffective social and
environmental policies is a political act. To
fail, as many would argue political ecology
has, to work together in some greater kind of
unity to plant and tend the seed in the ground
cleared by the hatchet is also a political act.17
One that few political ecologists desire.
VIII Conclusion
Political ecology has an enormous amount to
offer to help create a more just and sustainable
world, but this potential is underutilized.
Critique by itself is not engagement. Virtually
all political ecology research has policy relevance, but policy relevance alone does not
mean the research is used effectively, or
appropriately. Not every political ecologist
sees this as a problem, but many believe the
field can and should reach out more proactively. The challenges are not small. These
include a need to more clearly articulate the
commonalities that can bind political ecologists together as a community. These challenges also include doing a much better job of
communicating to the outside world what the
field has to offer, and how these ideas can be
used appropriately, including the explicit exposition of alternatives as well as critiques. What
are the most important seeds political ecologists wish to plant? Where will they be
planted? How will they be tended to
assure they are not co-opted or distorted?
Until the subfield can respond to these questions effectively, it can be expected that fields
with more narrow perspectives that reinforce
the status quo will dominate public debates
and decision-making, leaving political ecology
to the verdant but largely peripheral pastures
of academia. Whether political ecologists recognize it or not, a failure to fully and energetically engage policy at a time when society and

Peter A. Walker
the planet urgently need their perspectives is a
political act with profound implications.
Acknowledgements
This article would not have been possible
without invaluable comments offered by Tom
Bassett, Piers Blaikie, Patrick Hurley, Rod
Neumann, Paul Robbins, and Billie Lee
Turner. However, the author, of course,
assumes blame for all errors, small and
egregious.
Notes
1.

2.
3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Annual Conference of the Association of

American Geographers, Pittsburgh, PA, 48
April 2000: Reflections on Cultural/Political
Ecology I: Paths Taken, Directions Forged.
Personal communication, anonymous by
request, 12 June 2005.
For an excellent overview of the diverse
genealogy and status of political ecology
today, see Bassett and Zimmerer (2004); also
Robbins (2004); Neumann (2005).
For example, the Cultural and Political
Ecology (CAPE) specialty group of the
Association of American Geographers grew
from 221 to 531 members between 2002 and
2005. Most new members label their work as
political ecology. CAPE homepage: http://
www.stetson.edu/artsci/cape/ (last accessed
16 August 2005).
Panelist Remarks, Cultural and Political
Ecology at the AAG Century: Application
and Impact in the World. Association of
American Geographers meeting 1519 March
2004, Philadelphia. Transcript at http://www.
stetson.edu/artsci/cape/batterbury.php (last
accessed 6 August 2005).
To his credit, critical cultural geographer Neil
Smith has offered the memorable counteranalogy that population is to the environment
as a fish is to a bicycle. While the analogy
never went much farther than the conference
rooms of the academy, Smith (right or wrong)
clearly showed he was getting into the spirit of
things! Personal communication, 11 August
2005.
Notably, this success reflects the earlier
success of Piers Blaikies work in challenging
conventional narratives of soil erosion in south
Asia, which he has recently termed the

8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

393

Theory of Himalayan Environmental

Degradation (Blaikie and Muldavin, 2004).
Personal communication, 4 August 2005.
Personal communication, 3 August 2005.
Personal communication, 4 August 2005.
Piers Blaikie, personal communication, 4
August 2005.
With Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows;
first published in 1972.
However, Amazon.coms book description
praises Robbins Political ecology as written to
be accessible to students and entertaining
and rigorous synthesis.
These included Conservation Biology, Habitat
International, International Journal of
Sustainable Development and World Ecology,
Society and Natural Resources (two articles),
World Development, Global Environmental
Change Human and Policy Dimensions, and
Journal of Cleaner Production.
Indeed, it could be argued that the internal
institutional political economy of academic
research in general forces publication in academic journal presses whose raison dtre is to
provide the metrics of academic tenure and
promotion. The libraries that provide the main
revenue for academic publishers are essentially forced to buy them for that reason.
Transcript at http://www.stetson.edu/artsci/
cape/batterbury.php (last accessed 5 August
2005).
For example, Richard Schroeder (1999) brilliantly describes how environmentalist and
feminist critiques by the scholarly community
can actually become tools of oppression in the
hands of development professionals when
scholars offer critique without adequate
engagement to assure that the critique is used
appropriately.

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